Characters / Youngblood (Image Comics)

aka: Youngblood

Youngblood

Jeff Terrell / Shaft

• An Arm and a Leg: He loses an arm in Youngblood (2017).
• Big Eater: He was implied to be one but deeply hated it, having nightmares about binge eating and growing extremely fat as his teammates laugh at him. Jeff seemed to have a subtle obsession with keeping himself in shape at all times.
• Expy: He's one for Roy Harper of Green Arrow — a redheaded archer superhero. And as noted above, much like Roy in Justice League: Cry for Justice, Jeff likewise loses an arm.
• Legacy Character: Jeff Terrell was the original Shaft, but ended up being replaced by a government-appointed successor immediately after quitting the team. Jeff's former teammates take great pleasure in referring to the newbie as "Not-Shaft" in order to get under his skin.
• The Straight and Arrow Path: Shaft used a high-tech gravity-catapult longbow because he thought it looked cooler than a gun. In later series, he's not above using guns depending on the situation, but still strongly prefers the bow because he considers it to be irrevocably his "thing".
• Trick Arrow: Shaft plays with the trope. His arrows are the standard pointy variety, but he has a trick bow that doesn't require a string. (According to the tech manual, it uses focused artificial gravity to fire the arrows.) During Alan Moore's run, Golden Age hero Waxman tried to get Shaft to consider using trick arrows, giving examples of older archer heroes who used them. Not one of which had survived the experience.
• Weight Woe: As an example of Early-Installment Weirdness, Shaft apparently had an eating disorder during the team's first volume, and was very self conscious about his weight. The seventh issue included a Nightmare Sequence where he gorges himself and becomes obese. Strangely, this is one of the most original storylines created by Rob Liefeld, as it's virtually impossible to find comic books about male characters with eating disorders. This plot wasn't seen again in Shaft's later appearances.

Thomas John McCall / Badrock

• Boisterous Bruiser: Badrock is a teenage boy in the body of a giant hulking rock monster, who thinks that being a famous superhero is totally awesome. His enthusiastic attitude about all the crazy action he gets involved in as a part of Youngblood basically makes him sound exactly like a big fan of Dark Age comics.
• Catchphrase: YABBA-DABBA-DOOM! back when he was named Bedrock.
• HULK MASH!-Up: Badrock is an Expy of both The Hulk and The Thing—the two big men of Marvel. He is a massive behemoth made of a rock-like mineral with an exaggerated muscular physique and is by far the strongest member of the Youngblood team. In reality, he's a teenage boy who was given superpowers by mistake and still very much has the mentality of a teenager—a glory seeking, skirt-chasing Thrill Seeker. When he gets angry, he's pretty much a stone Hulk.
• Wolverine Publicity: Badrock is an oddity in that his solo series was short-lived and he's much better known for Youngblood, but he was the star of the Marvel Team Up-like Badrock and Company and has had many crossover minis — including ones with Wolverine and Grifter!
• Writing Around Trademarks: In the team's first appearance, Badrock's codename was "Bedrock". Liefeld decided to change the name to avoid confusion with the setting of The Flintstones (after a visit from Hanna-Barbera's lawyers.)
• Younger Than They Look: Badrock is a 12 foot tall rock monster. At the start of the original series he's in his very early teens.
• Your Days Are Numbered: In the 2017 run, Badrock is dying of McCall's Disease, a disease named just for him. (It's heavily implied that the experiment that gave him his powers is now killing him). This is what inspires him to help found a new Youngblood team.
  Badrock: I just want to be remembered for something more than "Yabba Dabba Doom". This is as close to a legacy as I'm likely to get, and I aim to make a difference before I... well, you know.

Bruce Stinson / Chapel

• Adapted Out: He is omitted from the movie, and replaced in the role of Spawn's origin story by Jessica Priest.
• Adaptation Name Change: Todd McFarlane's Spawn changed his name so that Chapel was his real last name instead of a codename with his first name being "Jess".
• Anti-Villain: Arguably Type IV, since he is just obeying his boss (Wynn). Still, he remains a Anti-Hero as well, so...
• Badass Normal: He was already a skilled soldier and mercenary before being enhanced.
• The Casanova: As shown in his home series and the HBO cartoon, he's prone to sleeping with a lot of women.
• Driven to Suicide: In the original comics, he learns that Jason Wynn infected him with an "inert" strand of HIV to keep him in line. Feeling he was a dead man walking, he sought out Spawn to figure out how he came back to life. After learning, he decides to kill himself so that he can come back with demonic powers. Spawn tries to talk him out of it, but he fails.
• Empowered Badass Normal: He got enhanced through chemicals that gave him various superhuman abilities.
• Evil Former Friend: Subverted; he killed Al only because it was his orders, and goes to hunt Spawn because it's his job rather than by malice.
• Facial Horror: Spawn's revenge for Chapel's role (pre-Retcon) in his death was to cut off the skin on the face where he wore his skull-themed facepaint.
• Fate Worse than Death: In the Animated series, as soon as Chapel learns that Spawn is Simmons, the man he killed, he tries blowing his brains out with his shotgun, only to realize there are no bullets left. He begs Spawn to kill him, realizing that there is no going back from this revelation. Spawn decides to spare him, seeing Chapel lose his mind as a fitting punishment.

  Chapel: Kill me. Kill ME! Finish it, there's no coming back...

  Spawn: No, I'm gonna let you live, longer than you want to.

  Chapel: No... NO!

• Go Mad from the Revelation: In the animated series, the end result of his first confrontation with Spawn (and the discovery that Spawn is Al Simmons returned from the dead)
• Heel–Face Turn: He eventually left Wynn and became part of the superhero team Youngblood.
• '90s Anti-Hero: Even more so than Spawn.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: His depiction in Todd McFarlane's Spawn used "gay" was a pejorative to insult Spawn's costume.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Killing Simmons was just a job for him.
• Retcon: The writers of the comics eventually decided to incorporate Jessica Priest from the movie into canon and thus diminished Chapel's role in Al Simmon's killing.
• Scary Black Man: Almost as much as Spawn.
• Smoking Is Cool: Frequently shown smoking.
• Sinister Shiv: During his "fight" with Spawn in the Animated Series. He tries to stab him with a very sharp piece of metal. Unfortunately for him, the whole shiv is sharpened and Spawn shows how a bad idea it is. By squeezing his hand until said shiv cuts his fingers and palm.
• Skull for a Head: Partially; after remembering that he was the one who killed him, Spawn hunted him down and cut his face out in the shape of a skull, forcing Chapel to graft an actual skull on his face to replace the missing skin.

Diehard

• Action Politician: Diehard becomes the US President, but is no less badass for it. And when push comes to shove, he takes matters into his own hands.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Diehard has been a cyborg since the 40s, but in one of the later Youngblood series he undergoes a series of upgrades to better perform his duties and comes out of the experience behaving much less human.
• The Faceless: Diehard was first seen unmasked on-panel ten years after his debut.
• Our Presidents Are Different: Since President Diehard is retired as a superhero, he's mostly President Personable, rather than President Action, but he's still a cyborg with 70+ years of experience kicking ass.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: President Diehard, who upon learning about a new, unsanctioned Youngblood team, chooses not to overreact.
  Diehard: I may be new to this office, Keever, but I'm old enough to have seen my share of executive mistakes. Let's not ruin my first one hundred days by arresting a handful of millennials playing dress-up.
• Retired Badass: Diehard and Vogue have retired from being active superheroes, now having become President and First Lady.

Bartholomew J. Troll

• All Trolls Are Different: He is a small troll with blue fur, which he shaves to look more human.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Troll basically introduces himself as being the comic relief of the team. In-universe, it causes his popularity to skyrocket.
• Really 700 Years Old: Troll is thousands of years old, however much he'd like to keep it a secret.
• Wolverine Wannabe: He's short, hairy and has a similar hairdo, long-lived, and has similar agility and skills. However, he's not quite as somber as James Howlett.

The Four

Showdown

• Mysterious Past: Showdown's past and identity are virtually unknown. The only known facts about her is that she was a former student of Bloodpool academy, and became friends with Brahma. She later on left and became an assassin.
• Technicolor Ninjas: Showdown wears a purple and green suit, along with a long flowing headband. Yet she is stealthy as she is deadly.

Gage

Starbright

Strongarm